Hey, the playoff selection committee, or at least most of it, got together and hung out on Monday. I’m not really sure why, but Bill Hancock seized the opportunity to engage in some Olympic-level flackery:

Bill Hancock, the executive director of the College Football Playoff, called the committee “a group of all-stars” and said the occasion, though essentially an orientation session, was “truly a historic day for college football, a signature moment for our game.”

Goosebump City, I tells ‘ya. I mean, I get chills just thinking about it. At least until I get to how one member intends to evaluate the job:

“I try to watch more games – which in my case is almost impossible, since I already watch a lot of football,” said Rice, a former provost and current professor at Stanford who has long had a reputation as a devout football fan. “It’s not so much to say how I would be ranking but, ‘What ought I to be looking for? What am I really seeing in this game that will help me when we get together for discussion? How am I thinking about what this team is showing on the field and what I see another team show on the field?’

“It’s more like that for me than, ‘This team I would be thinking of as stronger than that team.’ “

Yeah, why concern yourself with which team is stronger? Of course, part of the problem is nobody’s figured out yet how to measure that.

The committee will be expected to consider factors including conference championships, strength of schedule, head-to-head competition, common opponents and the effects of injuries. Part of the task of the committee, beginning now, is to develop metrics to compare and contrast teams. [Emphasis added.]

Hey, the game’s only been around 145 years. What’s a few more months trying to come up with a ranking system?

That’s not even the touchiest problem they’ve got to address.

Also to be determined the next few months is the committee’s protocol on recusal. Long noted that several members have been associated with more than one school.

They’re gonna need a bigger committee, methinks.

All in all, the whole thing reeks of stability.

“I think there is going to be a lot of times where there is more than one right answer,” said Steve Wieberg, the former college football reporter for USA TODAY Sports, who is on the committee as a former media member. “It will be up to us to come up with the best right answer. And it will be defensible.”

These folks will be a walking advertisement for an eight-game playoff in less than two seasons.

23 responses to “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get ready to settle it on the field!”

two disclaimers:
1 I know it is dangerous to jump to conclusions with this little info,and
2 I know I’m preaching to the choir Senator but ;
“it’s up to us to come up with “the best right answer.And it will defensible” Holy shit ,couldn’t you have said that since they started awarding National championships? It will be defensible until it (the playoffs) expand to 16 teams and we have the college equivalent of the New York Giants winning the Super Bowl(i.e. not the best team). Shit ,GT and Colorado winning/sharing the MNC was defensible. Anything is defensible and simultaneously arguable but just read that quote they are still not getting any closer to a perfect system like they keep promising.. I, like any one who looks a couple moves onto the chess board, know this system suffers from the same flaws the current one does. The FBS ain’t broke ,don’t fix it. If you like your current Health care…..er…..bowl system you can keep it. It’s all BS

As one who once was a playoff proponent, having seen a Georgia team left out of the BCS due to the Herbstriet doctrine (which conveniently changed to accommodate the Bama LSU rematch) I must admit I now have major reservations about the playoff as it morphs. Seems that the committee has no idea how they will evaluate teams, and it seems political correctness is seeping in quickly so that winning a weak conference will matter more than it should. We’ll be at 8 by 2015 and 16 soon after. Teams with 3 losses will be in and that will suck. Just my humble opinion.

But as a UGA fan (or fan of any specific team), thinking what it would be like if we had a 16 team playoff now, we’d be sitting here thinking “Hey, if we win out against AU, KY, and Tech, there’s a good chance we’re in the top 16 teams!” And I’d be excited that Murray might have a chance to go out while making some noise in the playoffs after a stellar career. I am not a playoff fan – mainly because I’m not an EXPANDED playoff fan – my view has pretty much always mirrored the Senator’s……….I don’t hate a 4 team playoff except that I know it’s only the first step to eventually a much larger playoff. But the homer in me would be kind of excited if we still had a chance to play our way into the playoffs right now, after all the ups and downs we’ve gone through.

I love the Dawgs and know they are better than their record(at least I believe they are) and wanted desperately for Murray to get his chance to play for a championship, but a team that blows a lead to Vandy and loses the game does not deserve a seat at the playoff table. That’s what I fear from expanded playoffs.

Agreed, like I said, as a general college football fan, I agree with you 100%. I’m just saying that if it does eventually go there, there could be some scenarios where I would be happy to have the 16 teams, purely for selfish UGA reasons. But for the overall good of the game, my viewpoint is actually the same as yours.

I don’t know how anyone can be against them getting together for a practice run and get used to the process. You antis would be opposed to any thing they say. Now if they really want to make headway, report back to the NCAA that this is a silly “half step” to where we need to be, let’s change it to eight now, then the process becomes very manageable with 5-6 automatic qualifiers and there will be a small amount of complainers with a decent case. Slogan of: “Why wait? Take it eight!”

I think we all know their will be universal complaining with four spots and it won’t have anything to do with who is on the committee, or what process they use. The NCAA committee designed a mule with this 4 team process.

And as soon as this happens I will be spending my fall Saturdays fishing or doing yardwork. Once you go to an 8 team playoff (or more) it fundamentally changes the game of college football. One of the reasons I am a college football fan over a pro football fan is that the regular season matters. That loss to Vandy cost us the right to play for the SEC championship (provided we win the next two weeks, otherwise it’s a moot point), with expanded playoffs this might not be the case. With a 16 team play off it certainly wouldn’t be the case.

I don’t like the BCS because it is a beauty pageant that the Dawgs have come out on the short end of 2 times in the past 13 years (’02, ’07) but I am not in favor of anything that devalues the best regular season in all of sports. My fear is that college football will end up like college basketball where nobody cares until the playoffs (March Madness).

Seriously? You think finishing in to the Top 8-10 teams in the country is a gimmee, not deserving of respect? We are talking 120+ teams with eight spots, not 32 teams with 12 spots, you do get we aren’t talking NFL, NBA, NCAA BB, etc.? If you don’t see the difference, fishing might be your game. Understand if you would just rather not have a playoff as in pre-90s, but don’t pretend this will do anything BUT devalue the regular season. For once there is a gateway to get to be a NC that doesn’t depend on politics or some silly pre-season ranking. We aren’t there yet with four, but with eight we have a real playoff with obstacles removed….teams will control their own destiny from the start.

Perhaps, but we’d only be justified if they say stupid things. Rice’s quote is the most annoying kind of academic-political speak. This:

“What am I really seeing in this game that will help me when we get together for discussion? How am I thinking about what this team is showing on the field and what I see another team show on the field?”

is horseshit. I’d rather have a bunch of sportswriters drinking beer and arguing over who’s the best team. The whole thing is so thick with 21st century nonsense it makes me ill…it’s really putting a damper on cfb for me already…we need to collectively grow a pair and take our game back.

Actually, I went to an economic development class in Louisiana where a rep from Agenda 21 group (who are changing their name specifically because of backlash) spoke, and she was the biggest Nellie Oleson busybody you’ve ever met. She considered herself the queen of taste, knew what kind of building was aesthetically pleasing and which buildings should be removed, knew what was best for you and everybody else, and was going to do anything she could to make certain you did something she approved of with your property.

She thought everybody in the room (economic development types) was on her side, so she spoke freely, and it was downright Bolshevik.

And I always thought it was such a good branding effort. On the other hand, the Jindalistas…

”WHEREAS, the United Nations Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of extreme environmentalism, social engineering, and global political control that was initiated at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development…. and WHEREAS, this plan of radical so-called “sustainable development” views the American way of life of private property ownership, single-family homes, private car ownership and individual travel choices, and privately owned farms all as destructive to the environment; and WHEREAS, according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, social justice is described as the right and opportunity of all people to benefit equally from the resources afforded by society and the environment which would be accomplished by socialists and communist redistribution of wealth; and WHEREAS, according to the United Nations Agenda 21 policy, national sovereignty is deemed a social injustice.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby recognize the destructive and insidious nature of the United Nations Agenda 21.”

It’s only crazy if it’s not true. Unfortunately, I sat in a classroom at LSU where somebody basically said private property rights and use of cars needed to be heavily abridged through legislation. The so-called tin foil hat crowd is right a lot more than they get credit for.

From what I understand the polls (AP, Coach’s, USA Today) will all still be in place, so what happens when the committee picks a team not in the Top 4? Say, a #6 or even a #8 (it’s possible based off of the screwy way they’ll be evaluating teams – afterall, a completely healthy UGA was ranked 6 in the AP poll after beating LSU – maybe all of those injuries would give us a couple of spots in the final tally). I like the idea of the 4-team playoff, but think the committee approach isn’t the best way to go about it.